After Lizzie Crowe finished her song, I felt my heart start beating again. All the way home, I hummed snippets to myself, a song with a story I’d never heard before.
There was so much I learned that didn’t fit in this audio story — more information about filk preservation efforts, filk players coming together online to create during the pandemic, and the many conventions around the world that draw filk circles together — so much that this story could have run for another hour, at least. While one audio story can’t encompass the whole of a community, Eric Coleman’s FilkCast on Apple Podcasts and Bowling Green State University’s growing filk collections are great places to start.
When a person hears “filk,” they have no idea what to expect. Filk fits no one category. It has few boundaries and no walls. It encompasses and welcomes anyone who wants to identify with it. Filk can be anything from country to jazz to the many obscure genres that Eric Coleman brought up. It lives on Bandcamp and in filk circles, and comes from people who play it not for money but out of love.
I’ve left this project with a new understanding of music and genre, and can only hope to hear more music made out of love in my future endeavors.